Let's create your own blog

• Type: http://www.blogspot.com/
• Click on: “Crear tu cuenta ahora”
• Type your email address twice
• Type your password twice (minimum 8 characters)
• Write the name you want to show in the blog. For example: Diana
• Type the characters showed at the screen
• Click on: “Acepto las condiciones del servicio”, “continuar”
• Give a title to your blog, for example: “Our English class”
• Write a name for the email address the blog will have, for example: magdalenamedio@blogspot.com
• Click on: “continuar”

Now you have to choose one of the layouts for your blog. Choose the one you like the most by moving up and down. You can change the appearance of the blog later on.

• Then click on: “continuar”

Once you click on: “Empezar a publicar” you have already created your blog and can start to publish whatever you want. Let’s try out some exercises.

• Write a title for your entry, for instance: “I can see clearly now”
• Then click on the empty screen.
• Let’s suppose you are going to post an activity you want your students to work with the song: “I can see clearly now”
• Open another Internet window and type: http://www.ecogoogler/
• Then type: I can see clearly now lyrics
• Click on the Internet site that has the lyrics
• Then cut and paste the address where you found the lyrics. You have to cut the link from the tool bar at the upper part of the screen. eg http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/hardertheycome/icanseeclearlynow.htm
• Then go to the screen that has the blog entry and paste the link.
• Highlight the link and click on the “link” option, then click on “Aceptar”
• Before this link you can write an introduction for your students to know what they are going to do.
• I can see clearly is a romantic song in English by Johnny Nash. Here you can read the lyrics.
• Then you can follow the same procedure you did to post the link of the lyrics, but now you can post the video of the song or the biography of the singer in English. Let’s try it out by typing “I can see clearly now video” in ecogoogler or in www.youtube.com.
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPKpmN1EJ_c&feature=related
  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Nash

• After posting all the links you want in the blog entry, you click on: “publicar entrada” and then on: “ver blog”

You can show your students how to create their own blogs and keep in them a diary of their lives, guided by the topics you are working in the class. For example:

About me: my name, age, hobbies, where I live, who I live with.
My family: how many they are, what they do, what they like and don’t, their physical and emotional description
My city:

Another alternative is that you have your own blog to manage and guide the activities you want your students to do: listening exercises, language tests, reading activities, vocabulary games, pronunciation or access to other academic tools like dictionaries, newspapers or links on general.